Here's Why I Don't Sweat The Haters

I've gotten a number of
messages in the last few days — from both supporters and
opponents of gay rights — expressing sympathy over the rude
and hateful messages I've been getting (and
publishing) ever since I started writing about Phil
Robertson.

This is sweet, but
misplaced. The
worst of my problems from being openly gay is that I get some
nasty email. That means I have it really easy. In a country where
gay teenagers are being bullied at school and thrown out of their
homes by their parents and told by their clergy that they're
going to Hell, we should not count my inbox as a hardship.

Rather than hurting me, these
emails are a reminder that I have not just an opportunity but an
obligation to be out of the closet — an obligation of which
other people in my position should be mindful.

Being openly gay has always
been pretty easy for me. I came out in high school in an affluent
suburb of Boston, where attitudes toward gays were fairly
positive and upscale New England standards of decorum stopped
people from expressing negative ones to my face. Then I went to
Harvard, where being gay is practically encouraged.

As far as I can tell, being
open about my sexuality has never caused me any professional
hardship — not when I was a banker, not when I worked for
conservative think tanks, and certainly not now that I work in an
industry that's more or less run by the gays. And if being openly
gay has been a silent hardship — if
there's some job I would have been offered or some piece that
would have been commissioned but for my sexuality —
then I've enjoyed enough offsetting advantages to easily survive
that problem.

I have friends and family who
love and support me for who I am.

Most importantly, my side is
winning the culture war. Legal and social acceptance of gays is
improving every day. The yelps of the haters (and even more
tellingly, their whining about "civility") are just
acknowledgments that we're winning and they're losing.

This emailer says I'm no
better than a "pediphile," which I believe is a term for a person
with a foot fetish.Josh
Barro/Business Insider

In that context, why should I react with anything other than
derision when somebody tells me God created Adam and Eve, not
Adam and Steve? (Seriously, some loser actually used that line in
an email today.)

What can that guy actually do
to me? Nothing. I hold all the power here.

And if some hater messages me on Facebook to ask questions like
"What do you and your male partner do during sex?"
and "For instance, when someone looks at your photo
and imagines a man's penis in your mouth. Does that not embarrass
you?", why shouldn't I just answer him
forthrightly and unashamedly?

The only reason these emailers make me angry is that I think
about how their insults affect other people. I'm too arrogant for
self-loathing, but that's not true of everyone. A lot of gay
people still live in communities where these hateful attitudes
are dominant. A lot of gay
children and teenagers are at the mercy of parents, teachers and
clergy who hold bigoted views.

Being open and unashamed about being gay is just one small thing
I can do to change the culture and make life easier for people
who haven't had my luck.

And that's why I'm mystified by prominent gay people in business
and media and Hollywood who choose to be in the closet. They have
the ability to help lots of people who don't have their
advantages, and they're selfishly passing on it under the guise
of "privacy." Often, they do this while living quite gaily in
places like New York and Los Angeles and reaping the benefits of
social acceptance in their non-professional lives.

Imagine, for example, that you were a prominent daytime news
anchor on a national cable news channel aimed at a conservative
audience, and you were gay. You would have the potential, by
coming out of the closet, to change millions of viewers'
perspective on gay people for the better. You'd make it easier
for your closeted gay viewers to love themselves, and easier for
your viewers' gay children to come out.

Or you could live a fabulous gay life with your boyfriend in New
York City while staying closeted to the national audience.
Wouldn't that be a pretty decadent choice?

And that's why I think the condolence emails from my readers are
off base. Treating nasty reader emails as a real hardship to
me lets me off the hook. If I let those messages cow
me, I'd be doing a disservice not just to myself but to others.
So I don't. And other people shouldn't either.